Ornamento nobile...Fatta da Lucretia Romana (Libro V of the Corona), title page (recto)

Cesare Vecellio

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Written by Cesare Vecellio, Italian, Pieve di Cadore 1521-1601 Venice, published by Alessandro de' Vecchi. From top to bottom, and left to right: Title printed in black. Below title is a scene depicting a robed female statue standing on a tortoise and holding a round object in her right hand. In the background on the left are two women sewing textiles, and on the right is a man sculpting another statue. Surrounding this scene are borders ornamented with different floral motifs.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art